Stitch! The Movie

'Stitch! The Movie' is a 2003 American direct-to-video animated science fiction comedy film produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and Rough Draft Korea, released on August 26, 2003. It is produced by Tony Craig, Jess Winfield, and Roberts "Bobs" Gannaway; Gannaway also co-wrote and co-directed with Winfield and Craig, respectively. It is the second film released in the Lilo & Stitch franchise and the third film chronologically, taking place after the 2002 first film and (by later extension) the 2005 direct-to-video sequel Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch. The film also serves as the backdoor pilot of the spin-off sequel series Lilo & Stitch: The Series, which Craig, Winfield, and Gannaway executive produced and debuted the following month. The story is an introduction to Dr. Jumba Jookiba's 625 experiments (made prior to Stitch) that he created with the financing of Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel.

Plot
Stitch has been trying to adapt to life with Lilo on Hawaii, but has a hard time fitting in without causing more disasters. Lilo tries to encourage him by saying he's one-of-a-kind, which just makes him feel worse, as he desires others who he could consider his "cousins". Meanwhile, ex-captain Gantu is hired by Jumba's former partner, a diminutive creature resembling a cross between a hamster, gerbil, and rabbit named Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel to retrieve the other 625 experiments. Gantu goes to Earth and abducts Jumba, finding and taking a blue pod with the number 625 on it; Stitch and Lilo take Jumba's spaceship and engaging Gantu in battle, only to be defeated and fall back to Earth.

Back at their house, Lilo, Stitch, and Pleakley find the container Jumba was hiding. Pleakley realizes that it contains the other 625 experiments, in dehydrated pods, and warns them not to tell anyone or put the experiments in water, aware of how dangerous they are. Deliberately disobeying his orders, Stitch and Lilo retrieve the container and hydrate one of the experiments, the electricity-based Experiment 221, who promptly escapes into the night. Jumba is being held captive on the ship of Dr. Hämsterviel, who demands the experiments handed over to him believing they're his. Unable to intimidate Jumba, Hämsterviel activates Experiment 625 to attack him. However, despite 625 having all of Stitch's powers, he is incredibly lazy and a terrible coward, prioritizing making sandwiches above all else. Meanwhile, Pleakley is able to make contact with Hämsterviel's ship via telephone, who proceeds to demand a ransom of the other 624 experiments in return for Jumba. Nani calls Cobra Bubbles to seek his assistance while Lilo and Stitch go out to find 221. They manage to track down 221 at a nearby hotel and successfully catch him with a glass vase; Stitch soon befriends him, realizing he's finally found a "cousin" of his own.

The rendezvous time arrives and Pleakley and Cobra show up to trade the container for Jumba, but Hämsterviel is annoyed to find one is missing. Lilo and Stitch soon arrive with 221, announced she has named it "Sparky", and declares that it and all the experiments are apart of their ohana. They set Sparky free and break Jumba from his bonds, just as Cobra signals the Grand Councilwoman's ship to rise out of the nearby ocean to blast Hämsterviel. Lilo protests, since he still has the other experiments, so Sparky uses his electrical abilities to disrupt the power on the ship, allowing Hämsterviel and Gantu to escape on their ship with the experiments, as Lilo, Stitch, and Sparky stow away.

Inside the ship, Lilo and Stitch manage to swipe the container and in the ensuing struggle, it ends up releasing the dehydrated pods, which rain down and scatter all throughout Hawaii. Having captured the two, Hämsterviel reveals his plans to clone Stitch a thousand times over, as he's strapped to a weight just heavier he can lift, while Gantu puts Lilo in a teleportation pod to send her to an intergalactic zoo. Before Stitch is vivisected by a laser for the cloning process, Sparky short-circuits the cloning machine, breaking him free, allowing the two to strap strap Hämsterviel to the device before they rescue Lilo.

Lilo, Stitch, and Sparky then short-circuit Gantu's ship, causing it to crash near a waterfall on Kauai. Landing Hämsterviel's ship back at the rendezvous point, they give Sparky a new home powering the Kīlauea Lighthouse, which hasn't been running in years. They then persuade the Grand Councilwoman to let them rehabilitate the other 623 experiments. The Councilwoman places Hämsterviel under arrest, and grants Lilo and Stitch the task of tracking down the other experiments. At that moment, Experiments 202, 529, 455, 489, and 390 are activated by various means, beginning the events of the series.

Later, Jumba and Pleakley hope to go home with the Grand Councilwoman this time, but they are left stranded on Earth once again.

Voice cast

 * Chris Sanders as Stitch/Experiment 626
 * Daveigh Chase as Lilo Pelekai
 * Tia Carrere as Nani Pelekai
 * Dee Bradley Baker as David Kawena
 * David Ogden Stiers as Dr. Jumba Jookiba
 * Kevin McDonald as Pleakley
 * Frank Welker as Sparky/Experiment 221
 * Jeff Bennett as Dr. Hämsterviel
 * Kevin Michael Richardson as Gantu
 * Rob Paulsen as Experiment 625
 * Ving Rhames as Cobra Bubbles

Other voices, listed as "With the Voice Talents of":
 * Corey Burton as Hawaiian Man
 * Zoe Caldwell as Grand Councilwoman
 * Tress MacNeille as Hämsterviel's Ship Computer
 * Kunewa Mook as Moses Puloki
 * Liliana Mumy as Mertle Edmonds
 * Jess Winfield as Various Voices
 * Lili Ishida as Yuki (uncredited)
 * Jillian Henry as Elena (uncredited)
 * Kali Whitehurst as Teresa (uncredited)

Production
Presented by Walt Disney Pictures and produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, ''Stitch! The Movie is the lead-in to Lilo & Stitch: The Series''.

At some point, there was a decision to only have Stitch's name in the titles of both the film and the subsequent series, which was planned to be called ''Stitch! The TV Series''. Eventually, this was abolished, resulting in both this film and The Series having mismatched names. The Stitch! name (with exclamation point) was used as the title for an anime series five years after this film's release.

Critical reception
In a 2019 list of direct-to-video sequels, prequels, and "mid-quels" to Disney animated films, Petrana Radulovic of Polygon ranked ''Stitch! The Movie tenth out of twenty-six films, the lowest of the Lilo & Stitch'' sequel films on her list. Radulovic wrote that she liked the message of Stitch finding his family, but criticized it for not being as funny as the original Lilo & Stitch film, stating that "some of the [mundane] charm of Lilo & Stitch[...]is lost in favor of chasing a new alien [Sparky] and introducing the rabbitlike villain [Hämsterviel] who just wants world domination."

In a similar list in 2020, Lisa Wehrstedt of Insider ranked ''Stitch! The Movie seventeenth out of twenty-five films, which was also the lowest of the Lilo & Stitch'' sequels on her list. Wehrstedt wrote that she believed the film's premise did not warrant a full feature film, and its finale was too "open-ended" to have ''Stitch! The Movie "work as a stand-alone film like the rest of the Lilo & Stitch'' sequels." However, she nonetheless claimed that "everything in the Lilo & Stitch world has an irresistible charm that propels it up many ranks considering what its plot and animation quality would be able to achieve without a bunch of cute little monsters."